If your board asked you ‘How do you know?’ …What would you say?

You know your business better than anyone right now and you personally are probably interacting with customers, in some way, on a daily basis. This could be handling the fiddly requests, delivering on their strategic needs or perhaps somewhere in between. In this tough climate, keeping customers purring is harder than ever, but if you’re like any of our clients you’ll be passionately and purposefully committed to doing just that.

Stepping back from the furore of daily activity, if I asked you some killer questions like what do your customers want from you? What makes you different? What keeps them spending and what keeps them up at night? Could you answer accurately, drawing on more than your instinct or anecdotes?

Of course your sales figures will also give you solid indicators to support your position, and decision makers love facts and figures. I’ve seen MDs and marketing teams swoon over a comprehensive spreadsheet and believe me, with our focus on ROI, these are something I take seriously too. Quantitative data is crucial to any business and you’ll never find me bashing that.

But let’s think back to your answers to those killer questions. What if I asked you to present those to the owner of your business, your board or your potential investors – how would you feel?

If they were to ask you ‘How do you know?’, What would you say?

In reality, decisions that are not informed by your current or prospect customers’ subjective point of view are being made in a vacuum. That’s not what a board wants to hear and this is where qualitative research has to come in.

There may be a view that research is for big brands with budgets to burn but the reality of this is very different. In our current experience, research is helping businesses of different sizes and sectors turn ‘we think’ into ‘we know’.

Take, for example, a coffee shop chain with a strong heritage and presence in the region. This business faced an aging customer demographic and stiff competition from corporate coffee giants, prompting them to consider how to secure their position and stand out against homogeny in the market.

We recruited customers and prospects to tell us what they thought about product quality, brand look and feel, messaging and interiors. Through these groups we were able to understand what would keep existing customers buying and prompt prospects to trial and buy from their coffee shops now and in the future. The result? A creative solution and launch strategy to drive growth for the business now and in the future.

Having a clear sense of what motivates your customers today and tomorrow will help ensure you not only define your marketing and business decisions more accurately but also report on these robustly.

We’re a marketing agency that begins with business objectives in mind as it’s these, ultimately, that a creative response and marketing strategy must measure against. Research is closely tied into our smarter approach as it delivers growth, with each decision based on the needs of the stakeholders that have built your business.

So whether you’re a David or Goliath, one of the promises we will make you is we’ll turn “We think” into “We know”.